Bible Memorization for 2009

Check out this great post from Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds:

Here's a handy printout with a good collection of suggested Bible passages to memorize -one a week for 2009.

Here's one of the more convicting things I've heard about the topic:

You may doubt that you can do this, especially if you are older. But ask yourself this question, If I offered you $1,000 for every verse you memorized in the next week, how many do you think you could memorize? Yet God says of his word in Psalm 19:10-11, "They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Thy servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward." The real value of the word is far greater than $1,000 a verse. The question is, Do you believe this? Believing this will be the crucial motivation you need.

     "The Church which has lost sight of the biblical doctrine of holiness tries to market the gospel as a solution for life's difficulties, a source for personal fulfillment, a means of achieving one's desires for significance and status and power. In other words, it is not a means of escaping the rule of desire, it is a means for fulfilling that rule. It suggests to people that they need not forsake their favorite sins, that indeed they cannot, but that they can find continuing forgiveness from a God who knows nothing of justice but everything of a sentimental feeling misnamed "love". It is a Church that expects to go down the aisle to meet its Bridegroom in a dress as filthy as the one in which He first found her... a Church that will not survive the fires of the coming Tribulation.
     Will there be a Church that survives those fires? Oh yes! God guarantees it. But it will be one that believes its Lord for grace to forgive and grace to purify. It will love its Lord in spite of deprivation, loss, and lack of fulfillment. It will, in the words of Paul, gladly lose all things in order to gain Christ."

John Oswalt, Called To Be Holy